Cite this article
(2022) ‘Star Status authentic design’, Architecture Papers of the Faculty of Architecture and Design STU, 27(2), pp. 41-47. https://www.doi.org/10.2478/alfa-2022-0012
SUMMARY
“Design Thinking” is one of the methodologies currently used in education. It is not an exclusive property of designers and in combination with artificial intelligence we can see new horizons; but, does standard “Design Thinking” have sufficient tools for society? What is the essence of “Design Thinking”, what is the role and duty of a designer and how is the designer’s work changing? Life is dynamic, open in movement and for this reason we are currently facing a new type of creative process. Thus, we must go deeper and work with the design intellect of a product, a movement, space and time, a new art of interdisciplinary experience—open sphere thinking, synergic strategy and independent artistic research. Design morphs the lifestyle based on authentic motivation in societal action in favour of sustainability, ecology and health, offering the possibility of educating the society. We need design that motivates the user to take self-reflection and inspires morphing of the current functioning of society. The Star Status Philosophy tells the story of a star does not stand still, but is moving, it changes the angle of view, advances into the unknown, takes risk, wonders what is coming. It is a star that is curious what it will be like and never follows the outlined way, connects to form new compositions with other stars in constellations and, through its new connections, it always creates a new composition, a new context, via non-linear operations. The new structure and proportions of star constellations identify the new interests of society, important essence of education and training, innovative design strategies and methodologies. The Open Sphere Strategy uses an intellectual action composition in the designer’s mental space, representing the movement of the designer’s or observer’s status around an open-sphere orbit line in real space-time and allows a permanent change of view. While morphing this status in the mind, a designer morphs the then actual composition into a new composition form. The result is a real design action and interdisciplinary fusion and finally, a real new design for a new lifestyle. We verified the developed Open Sphere design strategy based on the Star Status Philosophy with the expected outcome being a design with truly authentic essence. The process will further be subjected to experimentation, harmonization of composition and construction in an effort to achieve balance and a new atmosphere to produce a new design for the new lifestyle and emerging target group. The authentic design essence comes as a result of an alternative form of design and supports the intellectual evolution of design in the post-pandemic era, as a new art of interdisciplinarity, the basic layers of which are constituted by the Synergic Design Strategy. A new important part of the role of designers lies in sustainability, circularity, aesthetics and inclusion. For a designer, as a star in a star status constellation, it is essential to create connections, constellations and new composition with other stars in the society. The [theoretical] basis for design is the Star Status Philosophy, Open Sphere Strategy, Authentic Design Essence layers and the goal is to create a so-called Star Status Skills Demonstrator to stimulate the imagination of the designer. The benefit will be the improved perception through intellect, via abstraction to connectivity, compatibility and atmosphere to motivation. The intention is to anticipate the needs of a new lifestyle and strive to work with the emerging society’s needs, imagination, atmosphere, intellect and philosophy. The aim is to create an alternative form of design, harmoniously combining the continuity of the visual culture and philosophy of the future society. The benefit will be the opportunity to use components of the intellect and offer space for interaction, collaboration, identification and communication. Using the Star Status Design Philosophy in the design studio Baláž at the Institute of Design, Faculty of Architecture and Design, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia, allows focusing on complex defined topics for the new lifestyle of the post-postmodern epoch. The studio builds on the independent intellectual research and development concept with the Star Status Philosophy, Open Sphere Strategy and Authentic Design Essence, as parts of the education method used. All topics are about defining the interest(s) of a new society, internally called “Interest solving”, leading to a new lifestyle, as opposed to the stagnant view of post-postmodern society of today. The fusion of Action Centric Independent artistic research & development is an important part of design process in the studio. The Star Status Philosophy creates a flexible system for action-centric design process. The Star Status design philosophy will contribute to the application of alternative forms in education, with an impact on further creative performance or change of thinking and/or perception and will thus shape designers’ assumptions. Exploring and connecting different perspectives is the foundation of the Star Status Philosophy, which changes the predefined links for flexibility and provides an opportunity to develop new design practices for unpredictable reality, as part of a designer’s intellectual role focused on action with the spirit of avant-garde thinking, as opposed to optimization. The result is the action and interdisciplinary fusion, and perception interacts with thinking to gain knowledge.